Yiru Chen

Contemporary Shanghai, summer. Xia Qing, a boy who has been wearing Cochlear Implants due to hearing impairment, has a deep love for dancing. He gains so much joy just from copying Martha Graham’s hand gestures in a dance magazine. A kid with a precocious nature, he sometimes paints his pinky nail red just for that glimpse of beauty. Yet all these passionate pursuits are misunderstood and questioned by his single, deaf mother. Given the opportunity to audition for his favorite dance company once in a blue moon, he has no choice but to return to his body--He seeks his mother’s approval and longs to overcome this obscure self-identity crisis, through the silent language on his fingertips.

A man encounters a woman at a party, who used to be a filmmaker. After midnight, she tells him a story about a stray dog.

A taciturn Zamboni driver finds comfort in his work, preferring the company of his icy rink to other people. When his shift is suddenly called off one day, he grapples with his newfound freedom by following a discarded coupon to an underground massage parlor.